Rental Property Electrical & ESA Inspections · Waterloo

Rental Property Electrical and ESA Inspections in Waterloo

Waterloo landlords get asked for an electrical certificate more than landlords almost anywhere else in Ontario, because of the rental licensing program and the age of the student housing. Here is how to get one without paying for two inspections.

The blocks around the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier — Northdale, the streets off Columbia, Albert, Hazel and University Avenue, the older houses on the Laurier side of uptown — hold a large share of the city's rental housing, and a great deal of it is older housing that has been altered: basements divided into bedrooms, a second kitchen added, receptacles run by a previous owner with whatever cable was in the truck. Add the City of Waterloo rental housing licensing program, which can require an electrical safety certificate from the Electrical Safety Authority depending on the licence class and the property, and you have a lot of landlords looking for an electrician in a hurry every summer before the September lease date.

The order that saves money

An ESA general inspection is a request made to the Electrical Safety Authority: an inspector visits, looks at the visible and accessible electrical installation, and either issues a certificate or a list of defects to be corrected before one is issued. Booking the inspection first, on a house that has never been looked at, almost always produces the list, then a repair, then a second inspection. The cheaper order is: the contractor walks the property first and writes down what an inspector will flag, the repairs are done and their own notification filed, and then the general inspection is booked on a property that is ready for it.

What usually gets flagged in Waterloo student rentals

• Open junction boxes and splices without a box in basements and attics
• Missing or broken cover plates and receptacles hanging out of the wall
• Double-tapped breakers and panels with the wrong breakers in them
• Extension cords and power bars standing in for permanent wiring in bedrooms
• Bathroom and kitchen counter receptacles without GFCI protection
• Knob-and-tube still live in the older houses, and aluminum terminations in the 1970s ones
• Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms that are missing, dead, or not where they need to be
• Basement bedrooms and kitchens added without any electrical permit at all

None of these are unusual and most are quick to fix. The point of the walk-through is to fix all of them once rather than discovering them one inspection at a time.

Basement apartments and second units

A basement unit in a Waterloo rental usually needs its own circuits for the kitchen and bathroom, proper lighting, interconnected smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, and sometimes a subpanel so the unit is on its own breakers. Whether the unit is legal in the first place is a zoning and building permit question for the City of Waterloo, and the electrical work is done under that permit alongside the ESA notification. The building side falls under Ontario's Building Code. If you are adding a unit, get the permit conversation started with the city before booking trades; if you are fixing an existing legal one, the electrical can move quickly.

Turnover timing

Waterloo's student leases mostly turn over at the end of April and the end of August, and the window between one tenant leaving and the next arriving is short. Electrical repairs and an ESA inspection can be scheduled into that window if the walk-through has been done ahead of it. Booking in June for an August turnover is realistic; booking on August 28th is not.

Small multi-unit buildings and uptown rentals

Landlords with triplexes and small walk-ups near uptown and along King have the same list plus the question of shared and separate metering, common-area lighting, and exterior lighting for the entrances. The contractor handles the residential electrical in these buildings. Fire alarm systems in larger buildings are a specialised life-safety trade and not part of this site; you will be told if your building is in that territory.

What you get

A written list of defects from the walk-through with the cost to fix each one. The repairs, with the contractor's own ESA notification where required. The general inspection booked on a property that is ready. And a certificate that goes in the file for the city, your insurer, or the next buyer. Nothing on this site is a substitute for the city's own licensing requirements, which change; check what your licence class needs directly with the City of Waterloo.

Frequently asked questions

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